Republic of Doyle’s Allan Hawco returns to the CBC and the crime genre with Saint-Pierre, which follows the unlikely partnership of two skilled but very different detectives as they navigate the criminal underbelly of the picturesque but potentially dangerous location of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, a French territory off the coast of Newfoundland.
“This place spoke to me as soon as I went back there after 20 years,” shares Hawco in Toronto for CBC’s annual Winter Press Day. “I was standing on the road and felt that, ‘Oh, there is something here.” Hawco developed the show for two years along with co-showrunner Robina Lord-Stafford, who has also produced several hits for the CBC including Moonshine and Pretty Hard Cases.
“I feel like we’re not trying to shine any kind of ridiculous light on anything, he continued about the setting. “It’s truly sort of allowing this show to live in a place that is unique and unlike any other place. Saint-Pierre is a character, not a caricature. The thought of this show being anywhere else – if these characters in these situations were in any other place, it would be a completely different entity. I’d go further to say that I don’t think it could exist without Saint-Pierre.”
It’s a sentiment that Hawco’s co-star Josephine Jobert echoes and fell in love with the concept as soon as she read the first episode. “When you audition for French projects, it’s pretty rare that you get to read the [whole] first episode. I just loved it,” she enthuses. At first, Jobert, who is known internationally for starring in Death in Paradise, did hesitate in doing another “cop show,” but changed her mind after doing a read with Hawco over Zoom and fell in love with her character, Deputy Chief Genevieve “Arch” Archambault.
“You don’t want to do the same thing all over again, but Saint-Pierre is so different. As an actor, you want to play so many different characters, but I knew I wanted to do this. I was with my parents and went upstairs for the Zoom call while they waited for me downstairs. When the call ended, I told my parents ‘Oh my God. Okay, this is for me. This is my character. Usually, you dig into your own personality to feed the character, but I think with Arch, it’s the other way around. [Laughs] She changed me. It’s funny and it can be a little weird because you can go, ‘Girl, she’s fictional!’ But no, she’s everything I want to be! She’s everything that I used to be. Maybe, she’s everything that I’ve tried to be in the past few years because I kind of lost myself for so many personal reasons. So, for me, she just saved my life. I will always be so grateful to [the creators] for creating this character, not knowing that it would change my life one day. I think there’s something really magical about that. [Playing Arch] was just meant to be!
“You’re going to make me cry over here!” snaps back Hawco. The rapport and ease between the pair in person is as palpable as it is on screen. And to think, they first met on a Zoom call, but it was a very successful Zoom call. “Look, I don’t know if anyone thinks we have chemistry or not, but I know that both of us feel super comfortable with each other in many aspects despite only knowing each other in a very short time. We just killed it,” to which producers who played back the call confirmed.
Filming of the exterior scenes of Saint-Pierre do take place on the island, but all the interiors – including the police station and local bar – are shot in St. John’s. “Because I’ve done cop shows before, all the stuff in the police station can get a bit boring, because it’s all about ‘info, facts, and names,’ but I love it when we film in the ‘bull pen.’ I love it when we’re all together [on set]. I work every day with this guy [pointing to Hawco], which is love [Laughs] but we don’t spend much time with the other cast, so having the five of us being together [at the station] is just pure magic because we have so much fun on set. It makes it so much easier to deliver serious stuff. I love the dynamic between all of our characters. I love my character so much, it’s just pure joy and fun – but I also really enjoy all the scenes we get to do at the bar or when we walk down the streets of Saint-Pierre at night. [This show] has a good mix!”
“The show is a procedural,” adds Hawco. “It’s about two people who didn’t know they needed each other who find each other and discover more about themselves through each other. While we’re following the structural outline of what a procedural is, along with their personal arcs – it’s [truly] about the people in this place.”
While Hawco was used to the detective genre with Republic of Doyle, this new adventure will be a lot darker. “I didn’t want to retreat. It’s similar to what we do as actors, we don’t want to replay the same thing. So, it’s no different as a creator and writer. [The project] has to be right. You can’t chase something that isn’t right for you – in life, in acting, in writing – but you still need to be able to expand on your horizons.”
“It was pretty special to have made a show at all let alone a show that people liked,” says Hawco looking back at the success of Republic of Doyle. “It was a miracle. I’m grateful for all that. I don’t know if people are going to see Saint-Pierre with the same level of passion that I see it. There’s no way of knowing that [right now]. But for me, it felt like – and I’m talking about solely the opportunity to have made it and work with Josephine – but I feel like I’m the luckiest person alive to have had this opportunity. I kind of look at it from that aspect. But as a writer, of course, if you’re to look at certain aspects of the way that I like to view the world, there’s everything has a little bit of tongue and cheek, there’s a little bit of dark humour, there’s a little bit of light. I like to look at really hard things in a funny way because I find it’s easier to digest and easier to talk about. So, there’s a bit of that, but also from a grown up position of like a procedural there are more layers and more seriousness to the procedural elements in this way.”
While Hawco doesn’t sleepwalk like his character Donny “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, Hawco does insist that his character dresses better than him. “That’s for sure! It’s so weird to look at yourself and see a different person,” as he looks ahead to a promotional poster for the series.
“I don’t know if there are any similarities between us… I don’t think I thought about it because he’s so intrinsically in me now at this point because as a writer, I’ve been living with him for so long. He’s a better guy than I am! He’s smarter and more patient, but he handles his anger weirdly. He supresses stuff. He’s got deeper demons than I do. He supresses so that’s probably why he’s able to be so cool about things when he’s really not!”
“He’s not a better person! Just saying…” quips back Jobert.
“He’s still a good guy though,” replies Hawco. “They’re both great. That’s one of my favourite things about the show. Fundamentally, these two characters are great people. They want to do the right thing. There’s something inspirational about the idea of people who really, truly, are trying to do the right thing.”
“You both have this in common,” says Jobert.
Saint-Pierre streams Mondays on CBC Gem and airs Mondays at 9 p.m. (9:30 NT) on CBC.
